Who determines how something is translated?
GlotPress validators (including some of our multilingual Staff) do — they have the rights to approve, reject, or change suggested translations and overwrite existing ones.

I found a mistake or want to propose a better translation. How do I get the translation updated?
Suggest the new translation in your respective GlotPress project/language and the validator will review it.

How are validators selected? I disagree with my validator.
Validator permissions for a language are usually given to the first person who requests them in the Translations Forum.

If you feel that the translations for your language need adjusting, open a thread in the Translations Forum to discuss the issue with as many native speakers of your language as possible. Keep the discussion in English, and include all relevant details and examples, so that the Staff can review it and intervene if necessary.

I am a validator and I translated/validated a bunch of strings yesterday, but they are not showing up in my localized interface. Why?
Thank you for the hard work! Strings are deployed in batches of approximately 200 strings, rather than on ongoing basis. Once you have 200 new/updated strings, they will be deployed.

I see other projects on the GlotPress site, not just WordPress.com. What are they?
They are projects we develop that can help you blog better. Click on each project for more information, and follow the main site link to learn more about each particular product.

Forums and Support in Your Language

I want to have forums in my language, and I am happy to help moderate. Also, I want to have support articles translated into my language. How can I do that?
Great, we are excited you want to help! Assemble a team of volunteers (at least three), submit your request as a team in the Translations Forum, and we’ll set you up and get started.

Translations and WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com

Are WordPress.com and WordPress.org translations related? How?
WordPress.com is a service which uses the free, open-source software from WordPress.org. As a translator, it is extremely important that you are aware of the differences between the two.

We also try to use the existing translations of WordPress.org here on WordPress.com. There are several good reasons for that:

WordPress.org translations are an integral part of the software we use;

The existing WordPress.org translations have often been in use for a while, so that it is likely that they have been through several edits, and users are likely to be familiar with them.

This means that there are a few points that you have to keep in mind:

Some validators for WordPress.org are also validators for WordPress.com, which means that they probably have the permissions needed to override WordPress.com’s translations with their own, in batch.

WordPress.com’s translatable strings, however, are a superset of the ones available for WordPress.org; there are about 3 times more strings on WordPress.com, because of all the functionality we’ve added to it. WordPress.org translators may actually never even see those.

Because of the above, we strongly recommend that you, as WordPress.com translator/validator, get in touch with your language’s WordPress.org localization team, with the goal of maintaining consistency across all products and strings.

Best Practices

Are there any tips for translating more efficiently?
There are a few. You can:

Leverage existing translations: import WordPress.org strings, importer plugins, etc – good for consistency and also you won’t have to translate the same content twice!

Leverage the established terminology and style (rules for formal or casual voice, punctuation, etc.) from WordPress.org software by following the existing glossaries and style guide; if none exist for your language, help create them.